The most common naturally occurring minerals of barium are barite (now called baryte[5][6]) (barium sulfate, BaSO4) and witherite (barium carbonate, BaCO3), both insoluble in water. The name barium originates from the alchemical derivative "baryta", from Greek βαρύς (barys), meaning "heavy." Baric is the adjectival form of barium. Barium was identified as a new element in 1774, but not reduced to a metal until 1808 with the advent of electrolysis.

Barium is a soft, silvery-white metal, with a slight golden shade when ultrapure.[7]:2 The silvery-white color of barium metal rapidly vanishes upon oxidation in air yielding a dark gray oxide layer. Barium has a medium specific weight and good electrical conductivity. Ultrapure barium is very difficult to prepare, and therefore many properties of barium have not been accurately measured yet.[7]:2

At room temperature and pressure, barium has a body-centered cubic structure, with a barium–barium distance of 503 picometers, expanding with heating at a rate of approximately 1.8×10−5/°C.[7]:2 It is a very soft metal with a Mohs hardness of 1.25.[7]:2 Its melting temperature of 1,000 K (730 °C; 1,340 °F)[8]:4–43 is intermediate between those of the lighter strontium (1,050 K or 780 °C or 1,430 °F)[8]:4–86 and heavier radium (973 K or 700 °C or 1,292 °F);[8]:4–78 however, its boiling point of 2,170 K (1,900 °C; 3,450 °F) exceeds that of strontium (1,655 K or 1,382 °C or 2,519 °F).[8]:4–86 The density (3.62 g/cm3)[8]:4–43 is again intermediate between those of strontium (2.36 g/cm3)[8]:4–86 and radium (≈5 g/cm3).[8]:4–78

Barium is chemically similar to magnesium, calcium, and strontium, but even more reactive. It always exhibits the oxidation state of +2, except in a few rare and unstable molecular species that are only characterised in the gas phase such as BaF.[7]:2 Reactions with chalcogens are highly exothermic (release energy); the reaction with oxygen or air occurs at room temperature, and therefore barium is stored under oil or in an inert atmosphere.[7]:2 Reactions with other nonmetals, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, and hydrogen, are generally exothermic and proceed upon heating.[7]:2–3 Reactions with water and alcohols are very exothermic and release hydrogen gas:[7]:3

Barium salts are typically white when solid and colorless when dissolved, and barium ions provide no specific coloring.[11] They are denser than the strontium or calcium analogs, except for the halides (see table; zinc is given for comparison).

Barium hydroxide ("baryta") was known to alchemists, who produced it by heating barium carbonate. Unlike calcium hydroxide, it absorbs very little CO2 in aqueous solutions and is therefore insensitive to atmospheric fluctuations. This property is used in calibrating pH equipment.

Volatile barium compounds burn with a green to pale green flame, which is an efficient test to detect a barium compound. The color results from spectral lines at 455.4, 493.4, 553.6, and 611.1 nm.[7]:3

Barium found in the Earth's crust is a mixture of seven primordial nuclides, barium-130, 132, and 134 through 138.[12] Barium-130 undergoes very slow radioactive decay to xenon-130 by double beta plus decay, and barium-132 theoretically decays similarly to xenon-132, with half-lives a thousand times greater than the age of the Universe.[13] The abundance is ≈0.1% that of natural barium.[12] The radioactivity of these isotopes is so weak that they pose no danger to life.

Of the stable isotopes, barium-138 composes 71.7% of all barium; other isotopes have decreasing abundance with decreasing mass number.[12]

In total, barium has about 40 known isotopes, ranging in mass between 114 and 153. The most stable artificial radioisotope is barium-133 with a half-life of approximately 10.51 years. Five other isotopes have half-lives longer than a day.[13] Barium also has 10 meta states, of which barium-133m1 is the most stable with a half-life of about 39 hours.[13]

Alchemists in the early Middle Ages knew about some barium minerals. Smooth pebble-like stones of mineral baryte were found in volcanic rock near Bologna, Italy, and so were called "Bologna stones." Alchemists were attracted to them because after exposure to light they would glow for years.[14] The phosphorescent properties of baryte heated with organics were described by V. Casciorolus in 1602.[7]:5

The production of pure oxygen in the Brin process was a large-scale application of barium peroxide in the 1880s, before it was replaced by electrolysis and fractional distillation of liquefied air in the early 1900s. In this process barium oxide reacts at 500–600 °C (932–1,112 °F) with air to form barium peroxide, which decomposes above 700 °C (1,292 °F) by releasing oxygen:[18][19]

The abundance of barium is 0.0425% in the Earth's crust and 13 µg/L in sea water. The primary commercial source of barium is baryte (also called barytes or heavy spar), a barium sulfate mineral.[7]:5 with deposits in many parts of the world. Another commercial source, far less important than baryte, is witherite, a barium carbonate mineral. The main deposits are located in England, Romania, and the former USSR.[7]:5

Barite, left to right: appearance, graph showing trends in production over time, and the map showing shares of the most important producer countries in 2010.

The baryte reserves are estimated between 0.7 and 2 billion tonnes. The maximum production, 8.3 million tonnes, was produced in 1981, but only 7–8% was used for barium metal or compounds.[7]:5 Baryte production has risen since the second half of the 1990s from 5.6 million tonnes in 1996 to 7.6 in 2005 and 7.8 in 2011. China accounts for more than 50% of this output, followed by India (14% in 2011), Morocco (8.3%), US (8.2%), Turkey (2.5%), Iran and Kazakhstan (2.6% each).[21]

The mined ore is washed, crushed, classified, and separated from quartz. If the quartz penetrates too deeply into the ore, or the iron, zinc, or lead content is abnormally high, then froth flotation is used. The product is a 98% pure baryte (by mass); the purity should be no less than 95%, with a minimal content of iron and silicon dioxide.[7]:7 It is then reduced by carbon to barium sulfide:[7]:6

BaSO4 + 2 C → BaS + 2 CO2↑

The water-soluble barium sulfide is the starting point for other compounds: reacting BaS with oxygen produces the sulfate, with nitric acid the nitrate, with carbon dioxide the carbonate, and so on.[7]:6 The nitrate can be thermally decomposed to yield the oxide.[7]:6 Barium metal is produced by reduction with aluminium at 1,100 °C (2,010 °F). The intermetallic compound BaAl4 is produced first:[7]:3

3 BaO + 14 Al → 3 BaAl4 + Al2O3

BaAl4 is an intermediate reacted with barium oxide to produce the metal. Note that not all barium is reduced.[7]:3

8 BaO + BaAl4 → Ba↓ + 7 BaAl2O4

The remaining barium oxide reacts with the formed aluminium oxide:[7]:3

Barium vapor is condensed and packed into molds in an atmosphere of argon.[7]:3 This method is used commercially, yielding ultrapure barium.[7]:3 Commonly sold barium is about 99% pure, with main impurities being strontium and calcium (up to 0.8% and 0.25%) and other contaminants contributing less than 0.1%.[7]:4

A similar reaction with silicon at 1,200 °C (2,190 °F) yields barium and barium metasilicate.[7]:3 Electrolysis is not used because barium readily dissolves in molten halides and the product is rather impure.[7]:3

Barium, as a metal or when alloyed with aluminium, is used to remove unwanted gases (gettering) from vacuum tubes, such as TV picture tubes.[7]:4 Barium is suitable for this purpose because of its low vapor pressure and reactivity towards oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water; it can even partly remove noble gases by dissolving them in the crystal lattice. This application is gradually disappearing due to the rising popularity of the tubeless LCD and plasma sets.[7]:4

Other uses of elemental barium are minor and include an additive to silumin (aluminium–silicon alloys) that refines their structure, as well as[7]:4

Barium sulfate (the mineral baryte, BaSO4) is important to the petroleum industry as a drilling fluid in oil and gas wells.[8]:4–5 The precipitate of the compound (called "blanc fixe", from the French for "permanent white") is used in paints and varnishes; as a filler in ringing ink, plastics, and rubbers; as a paper coating pigment; and in nanoparticles, to improve physical properties of some polymers, such as epoxies.[7]:9

Barium fluoride is used for optics in infrared applications because of its wide transparency range of 0.15–12 micrometers.[26]

YBCO was the first high-temperature superconductor cooled by liquid nitrogen, with a transition temperature of 93 K (−180.2 °C; −292.3 °F) that exceeded the boiling point of nitrogen (77 K or −196.2 °C or −321.1 °F).[27]

Because of the high reactivity of the metal, toxicological data are available only for compounds.[29] Soluble barium compounds are poisonous. In low doses, barium ions act as a muscle stimulant, and higher doses affect the nervous system, causing cardiac irregularities, tremors, weakness, anxiety, shortness of breath, and paralysis. This toxicity may be caused by Ba2+blockingpotassium ion channels, which are critical to the proper function of the nervous system.[30] Other organs damaged by water-soluble barium compounds (i.e., barium ions) are the eyes, immune system, heart, respiratory system, and skin[29] causing, for example, blindness and sensitization.[29]

Barium is not carcinogenic[29] and does not bioaccumulate.[31][32] Inhaled dust containing insoluble barium compounds can accumulate in the lungs, causing a benign condition called baritosis.[33] The insoluble sulfate is nontoxic and is not classified as a dangerous goods in transport regulations.[7]:9

To avoid a potentially vigorous chemical reaction, barium metal is kept in an argon atmosphere or under mineral oils. Contact with air is dangerous and may cause ignition. Moisture, friction, heat, sparks, flames, shocks, static electricity, and exposure to oxidizers and acids should be avoided. Anything that may contact with barium should be electrically grounded. Anyone who works with the metal should wear pre-cleaned non-sparking shoes, flame-resistant rubber clothes, rubber gloves, apron, goggles, and a gas mask. Smoking in the working area is forbidden. Thorough washing is required after handling barium.[29]